LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 18 November 2003)

§ Baroness Scotland of Asthal

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 3A to 3D to Lords Amendment No. 3.

I invite your Lordships to agree to amendments which another place made to the amendment that was pressed in this House on Report. The other place was happy to accept the Government's proposals in that regard, and I hope that noble Lords will take a similar approach.

In putting forward our proposals, the Government sought to try to preserve the spirit of the amendment that your Lordships made while using language suitable for a piece of UK legislation. What we are concerned with is the information that an incoming Part 1 warrant should contain. In the Government's view, the Bill was already explicit on that point, but we appreciate that noble Lords took a different view.

In particular, your Lordships decided to import some wording from the framework decision on the European arrest warrant directly into the Bill. We have no objection to the principle, but it seemed much more sensible to use language which would be readily understood by people in this country and which has been prepared by our expert Parliamentary Counsel.

1905 The amendments to the amendment which were made in another place remove the requirement that the warrant should contain details of, the nature and legal classification of the offence and the applicable statutory provision". That was replaced by, any provision of the law of the category 1 territory under which the conduct is alleged to constitute an offence". I hope that your Lordships will recognise that as a slightly neater and more straightforward formulation. I should make it clear, for the avoidance of doubt, that there is already a separate requirement to give details of the sentence that could be passed.

Similarly, the amendments in another place replaced, a description of the circumstances in which the offence was committed", with details of, the conduct alleged to constitute the offence". Again, it is the same requirement but simply expressed rather more neatly and in keeping with how our legislation is normally drafted.

One part of the amendment passed by your Lordships was removed without replacement in another place, which was that a warrant should contain information about the, degree of participation in the offence by the requested person". We did not really understand what was meant by that or its relevance. For extradition purposes, it does not matter if the person is the ringleader or an accomplice, provided that the person is alleged to have committed an extradition crime. To use the example used by my honourable friend Caroline Flint in the other place, does it matter whether the person was waving the sawn-off shotgun at the bank teller or driving the getaway car? Clearly, that may be an important consideration at the eventual trial and in determining sentences to be imposed, but for the purposes of extradition to another EU country we do not think it of the first importance.

As I have tried to indicate, the Government sought, so far as possible, to accept the spirit of the amendment. I am pleased to say that that was accepted in its entirety by Members of another place without dissension or division. I very much hope that noble Lords will similarly give the amendments a warm welcome.